The latest post-holiday polls are in for Iowa–the home of the first Republican Primary (actually Iowa employs a caucus attendee voting mechanism to select their convention delegates). Iowa is now a toss-up between Cruz and Trump in the Republican caucuses. Rubio and Carson duke it out for third. Sanders moves within striking distance of Hillary on the Democratic side. Behind the headline numbers, a deeper look into the polls reveals some interesting points. But first the top line numbers. Two new Republican caucus polls from Iowa have been released in the past 24 hours: The Public Policy Polling (PPP), and the highly respected Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll. They both show the Republican race very close, with PPP having Trump over Cruz 28 percent to 26 per cent, while the Iowa poll shows Cruz on top, 25 percent to 22 percent. Rubio is third in both polls–15 points behind Rubio. Carson is a point further back in fourth place in the Iowa poll and 5 points behind Rubio in the PPP poll. The other...

The Quinnipiac national poll, released Tuesday, December 22, showed Trump with 28 percent, just a 4 percent lead over Ted Cruz–his closest rival (and the leader two recent Iowa Polls). The significance of the Quinnipiac poll is that it was taken over the period of December 16th to 20th; hence it was the first national poll administered, at least in significant part, following Trump’s praising of Putin’s authoritarian regime. Just as it appeared that Trump’s campaign was finally showing signs of imploding, a second poll was released, this one by CNN. The two polls showed unusual variance, not only in terms of absolute numbers, but in direction of change–at least for Trump. The CNN poll was taken the 17th to 21st. It showed Trump at 39 percent, a full 21 percentage point lead over Cruz. Some variance among polls is to be expected early in the primary season. But not like this. Obviously pollsters are having a difficult time modeling the likely voter. To understand what I mean about “modeling the likely voter,”...

On the eve of Tuesday’s important Republican debate, all eyes, once again, are on Donald Trump. As most readers of this blog are aware, early last week Trump made his most inflammatory anti-Muslim proposal to date*, calling for: “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States (until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on).” He compounded the invective by citing, as precedent, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. His proposal followed the bombings in Paris and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. By applying a religious test for admission, most constitutional scholars felt that it was unconstitutional. Others noted that the internment of Japanese-Americans is considered one of the darkest governmental acts in U.S. history. Condemnation of Trump was immediate. Nearly all Republican leaders and candidates (with the notable exception of Ted Cruz) denounced Trump’s proposal as “un-American,” “disgusting,” “not who we are,” and much worse. Several said it disqualified him from being the Republican nominee. He was, many said, playing...

Donald Trump continues to make outrageous statements. Last week he mocked a reporter with a disability that doesn’t permit him to control his arms. In doing so, Trump crossed a line of decency that has been well established. This week, on Fox News (Fox & Friends), he ignored the Geneva Convention that the U.S. has long supported, and urged the killing of families of ISIS terrorists. “When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” he argued. No more concern for “collateral damage.” Instead, target them! On December 7, he proposed keeping all Muslims from coming into the country. By definition that would keep out the representatives of our allied countries in the regions: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and the Gulf States. One outrageous statement, generally thought to be offensive to most Americans, after another. Mainstream Republican politicians have long shuddered at the prospect of a Trump candidacy, feeling that not only would he lose, but he would take down other Republican candidates with him. They have been waiting longer than...

The attacks in Paris have the potential to be game changers. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls exclaimed, “nous sommes en guerre” (we are at war), and President Hollande told the world that “France will destroy IS.” President Obama announced that the U.S. stands together with France, and Secretary of State John Kerry announced meetings with his French counterpart to determine exactly what form the response will take. Talks of war are in the air, and it has been seized upon by many of the Republican hopefuls, and some Democrats have lent their voice to the jingoist chants. Whichever path of response that we choose, we would do well to make sure that we don’t repeat the disastrous invade-first and think-about-what-happens-next-later mode that produced the Iraqi mess and the resultant ISIS conundrum. ISIS has been successful in recruiting Western Muslims, in part, by framing it as a war between Islam and Christian Crusaders–a reminder of the humiliation, plundering, and rape that accompanied the Crusader’s conquering march to the holy land. Meanwhile, candidate Donald Trump, whose ten hour...

On the eve of the fourth Republican debate, new polls (November 9-10) from South Carolina and nationally continue to show back and forth lead changes–but also continue to show that BOTH Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson’s support levels have stalled in the 20s. Both retain their core supporters but are failing to garner support from the remainder of Republicans; In my last post, I gave suggestions as to why this has happened. Now clearly in third place, Marco Rubio has edged up–thereby earning the infamous Trump negative attacks. Most poll experts believe that Trump, for reasons cited in my earlier poll analysis, has peaked and will definitely not be the Republican Candidate for President. Carson’s demise is less certain with the greater Fox support and still high “favorables”–though a deeper look into poll data shows that as voters become familiar with him, he, too, has trouble expanding his core base of support. Carson’s surge over the last couple of weeks seems to have stalled as well. A window of opportunity has therefore...